Emergency ward.
Li Susu slowly opened her eyes, greeted by a pristine white ceiling.
Her head felt heavy and her limbs weak. Compound that with the nightmare she had just suffered—dreaming that she had suffered heavy bleeding during surgery and had to have her uterus removed—it had broken her out in a cold sweat. Right now, she was completely exhausted, feeling as though she had just run a marathon.
A faint coolness on the back of her hand made her turn her head. She saw that she was receiving an intravenous drip.
For a moment, she couldn't quite remember what had just happened.
"Awake?" A deep, magnetic voice came from beside her.
Li Susu started slightly and turned her head to see Bo Junyi sitting on a chair next to the hospital bed.
The man was dressed in a tailored, custom-made black suit. With his handsome facial features and extraordinary aura, he looked like a figure that had stepped right out of a painting.
Before she had fully recovered her wits, Li Susu stared at him for a good long while.
It wasn't until she noticed the chill between his brows that she realized this was no dream.
"Why... are you here?" As she spoke, her throat felt painfully dry.
Instead of answering immediately, Bo Junyi stood up, pressed the call button by the head of the bed, and then said indifferently, "You fainted. The medical staff called me."
His expression remained stern, even harsher than it had been back at the hospital.
He was practically a walking refrigerator, causing the surrounding air temperature to drop by several degrees.
"Mr. Bo, I'm sorry for bothering you."
Bo Junyi gave a noncommittal response, but Li Susu could tell that his mood right now was definitely not good.
"The doctor just said you have hypoglycemia and physical exhaustion," the man said in a neutral tone, making his emotions impossible to guess.
Li Susu hurried to reply, her voice laced with weakness as she spoke. "I'll be more careful. Thank you for coming to see me, Mr. Bo. I'm fine now, so you should go take care of your business."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
Bo Junyi raised an eyebrow, his words carrying an inexplicable hint of sarcasm. "Shall I call your husband for you?"
Li Susu's heart skipped a beat. Her bloodless, pale face was full of shock, and she stammered in explanation, "Mr. Bo, I'm not married—"
"Then call your boyfriend. I have things to do and no time to keep you company."
Bo Junyi's tone was icy, filled with obvious sarcasm and displeasure.
Just moments ago, in order to find the contact information for her family and friends, he had flipped through her phone's contact list, only to discover that her address book had a single entry.
The nickname was listed as "Husband."
He hadn't looked closely before Li Susu woke up, so he hadn't actually made the call.
Earlier, he had even considered letting her have the child; if they got along reasonably well, getting married for the sake of the baby wouldn't have been out of the question.
But looking at it now, that had simply been his own wishful thinking.
She was most likely approaching him for money, intending to take the cash and then go back to support her boyfriend.
Thinking of how he had entangled himself in such a chaotic mess of a relationship, Bo Junyi's gaze turned frosty by several degrees, and he laughed out of sheer fury.
Yet Li Susu was completely oblivious to all this.
Believing she would no longer have any entanglement with him in the future, naturally she had no desire to continue explaining about the "boyfriend," lest he think she was trying to cling to him.
She maintained her proper manners, even managing to squeeze out a faint smile. "Please take care on your way out, Mr. Bo."
Originally, he had no intention of interfering further in her affairs, but hearing her dismiss him like this made him inexplicably displeased.
"Since I'm already here, it won't hurt to stay a little longer. It's not too late to leave after your surgery is over."
Li Susu blinked, finding it hard to believe how quickly his attitude had shifted.
"Then I'll have to trouble you, Mr. Bo." Suspecting he was only staying because he worried she might change her mind, Li Susu still offered a sincere expression of gratitude; after all, having him stay wasn't a bad thing for her.
Bo Junyi offered no response.
At that moment, a nurse hurried over. Seeing that Li Susu had woken up, her expression relaxed somewhat.
She casually adjusted the roller on the IV tube and said to Li Susu, "Pretty lady, you're not just suffering from hypoglycemia right now, you also show signs of malnutrition. You need to eat more. Just keep resting with the IV going, and have your boyfriend bring some food up for you."
With that, she flashed a sweet smile at Bo Junyi. "Handsome, just call if you need anything."
Bo Junyi gave a cold "Mn."
Li Susu couldn't help muttering inwardly that he was cold to absolutely everyone.
The alluring scene from the hotel that night instantly flashed through her mind. She found it hard to imagine why someone who looked so cold and devoid of worldly desires could have lost control like that?
After the nurse left, only the two of them remained in the room, and a subtle awkwardness filled the air.
Li Susu turned her head away, her fingers unconsciously twisting the edge of the blanket. Perhaps thinking of some R-rated imagery, her heart beat a little too fast.
She wanted to close her eyes and rest, but sensing the man's gaze lingering on her, she felt it was impossible to find peace.
After a moment's thought, she reached out to press the call button.
"What is it now?" Bo Junyi furrowed his brow slightly.
Frightened by his icy tone, Li Susu immediately pulled her hand back, her voice shrinking to a mosquito's hum. "I'm already fine. I can just have the nurse come pull the needle and go straight to surgery, so I don't take up too much of your time."
Bo Junyi's gaze darkened, a trace of imperceptible fluctuation flashing deep in his eyes.
"Are you really in that much of a hurry for surgery?" he blurted out, speaking the thoughts right from his heart.
Li Susu was stunned for a moment, then spoke mildly, "Mr. Bo, I'm already extremely grateful that you came. I really am sorry to take up any more of your time."
"This isn't a matter of time anymore."
The atmosphere in the hospital ward tightened in an instant. Bo Junyi's expression grew terrifyingly gloomy, his voice as cold as if it had risen from an ice cellar. "You clearly know what condition your body is in, yet you deliberately ran off to a tiny place like this for surgery. Do you think you've lived too long?"
Rendered completely speechless by his words, Li Susu let silent tears stream down her face.
"I don't have that much money."
Seeing her crying like a pear blossom drenched in rain, Bo Junyi swallowed back the words that had been on the tip of his tongue.
He couldn't fathom any father pushing his daughter into a pit of fire just for money. Even if such a person existed, it wouldn't be such a coincidence that she drew the short straw.
Therefore, he naturally assumed that the one million had been swindled away by her boyfriend.
"Fine. I'll take care of the money issue. Fill your stomach first, and tomorrow I'll accompany you to the hospital you went to before for the surgery."
Even though his tone remained just as cold, Li Susu couldn't keep her nose from stinging. Before she could stop them, her tears fell in a flurry.
Seeing her crying again, Bo Junyi moved his thin lips, wanting to offer a few words of comfort, but for a moment he didn't know how to begin.
Just then, the sound of hurried footsteps suddenly echoed from the hallway outside the ward.
"Doctor, did Li Susu actually have the surgery or not?"
"Definitely not. She hadn't even finished her pre-op checks when she fainted from hypoglycemia."
Hearing her mother's familiar voice drawing closer from afar, Bo Junyi's body stiffened and he froze in place.
At the same time, hearing her own name, Li Susu stopped crying. She looked at Bo Junyi, her eyes filled with undisguised shock and a hint of lingering fear.
"M-Mr. Bo—"
Looking toward the doorway, Li Susu's voice carried a trace of a tremble.
Could it be that he was already married?
What should she do if his wife came looking for him?
The more she thought about it, the more frightened Li Susu became. Her face turned even paler than before, and she pulled back the blanket, preparing to get out of bed.
Bo Junyi pressed her back down. "Where are you going?"
"I—should I go hide?"
"No need. My mother doesn't eat people. Just stay quietly where you are."
With that, Bo Junyi strode out of the ward. Just as he pulled the door shut behind him, he saw his mother charging toward him with a fierce expression.
"Mom, why are you here?" Bo Junyi instinctively tightened his grip on the doorknob.
Before she had even come to a complete stop, Wen Nianshu pointed an angry finger at her son and rebuked him sharply, "Bo Junyi, how could you be so cruel? Susu is carrying your child, the bloodline of the Bo family! How can you just cast it aside and say you don't want it?"
The more she spoke, the more agitated she became. Her voice choked with emotion, filled to the brim with disappointment and heartache. "Your father and I are both over seventy years old. We go to the temple to burn incense and worship every single day just to hold a grandchild. Now that we've finally managed to welcome one, you want to sneak around and abort the child behind our backs—how did I end up with such a bitter fate, saddled with an unfilial son like you!"